Opposition Discusses Fate of Detained Activists with CoE Official

Several opposition leaders said that at a meeting with official from Council of Europe (CoE) they had requested from CoE to study closely cases of those opposition activists, which they say, were arrested by the authorities because of political motives.

Jean-Louis Laurens, Council of Europe’s political affairs director general, met in Tbilisi with some non-parliamentary opposition leaders on October 7, including Kakha Kukava, co-leader of Conservative Party; Nino Burjanadze, leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia and Eka Beselia of the Movement for United Georgia.

“Of course we have raised the issue of political prisoners, who have been arrested just for actively taking part in the protest rallies, which were started in April,” Burjanadze said after the meeting and added that the opposition leaders requested CoE official “to monitor” those cases.

“We have informed CoE official about political prisoners in Georgia and handed to him documents about actions that have been undertaken by the authorities against the political opponents,” Kakha Kukava of the Conservative Party said.

“The fact that there are political prisoners in Georgia is not yet directly confirmed by the European structures. So our priority is to study each and every individual case. If this process of study is launched, the Council of Europe will definitely recognize those detainees as political prisoners,” RFE/RL Georgian service reported quoting Kukava as saying after the meeting with the CoE official.

Jean-Louis Laurens also met on October 6 with a representative from Irakli Alasania’s party Our Georgia-Free Democrats (OGFD), Viktor Dolidze. The party is part of the Alliance for Georgia, also involving Republican and New Rights parties.

Alasania was among those opposition representatives who met with Interior Minister, Vano Merabishvili, on August 12 to discuss release of opposition activists. Since then, according to the opposition parties, only four activists have been released from pre-trial detention without dropping charges from them.

“There are no new developments on the matter yet,” Zurab Abashidze of the OGFD told Civil.Ge on October 7 and added that the party might request for another meeting with the Interior Ministry leadership to again raise the issue.

Also on August 6 Jean-Louis Laurens met with leader of the parliamentary minority and of Christian-Democratic Movement, Giorgi Targamadze, and Public Defender, Giorgi Tugushi, RFE/RL Georgian service reported.

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